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Hi, welcome to the episode of Software Up Radio. I am your host, Rad, and I have a very special guest. I have former Brigadier General, author of Total Empire, Anthony J. Tata, and Anthony has been more than just an author, more than just a Brigadier.

He's a U.S. citizen. He helped put the flag over our head at night, and he's worked in politics, and it's got to be a very difficult place to be when you're trying to become an officer and move in a career where there's politics involved heavily.

The name tape says U.S. military, U.S. Coast Guard U.S. Army. Welcome to the show, and once you hear that, how do you keeping it real in the military? It's today's climate.

Yeah, so, Rad, thanks so much for having me on, and I'll tell you, you know, anytime that I'm introduced with high accolades, I never believe my own press releases. I'll just tell you a real quick story.

We were in Afghanistan. I was the deputy commander-general there. My special operations colonel asked me to fly down with him to a combat area.

We spent the day down there after, you know, ten into our wounded, and on the way out, we're standing in a poppy field about chest-high and poppy, and it's me, the special forces colonel, his radio operator and my radio operator.

And his radio operator turns to him, we're waiting on the helicopter to come in and says, hey, sir, we've got a intercept that the Taliban is across the river in Hellman province, and they have a sniper with instructions to shoot the one without the rifle.

And I looked at, then Colonel Reader, he's got his rifle strapped across his chest. I looked at his radio guy, he's got his rifle.

Look at my guy, he's got his rifle, and I always carried a rifle, and we had been in such a hurry. I didn't have my pistol with not my rifle.

Colonel Reader retired now, Major General Reader, looked at me, spent some tobacco juice into the, into the poppies and smiled and says, sir, looks like you're about to have a bad day.

I said, Colonel, consider this a direct order and give me that rifle. What he did not do, and it was a joky moment, though we kind of kept moving around, so the sniper, you know, if he shot, he didn't hit anybody, that's for sure.

Helicopter comes in and we get out there just fine. So the point being, don't make too much of your rank, don't make too much of your, you know, above prior Bonafide is, you know, you live today and, and treat everybody kindly and move out and draw fire.

You know, I think that being your radio man would have been a pretty cool gig, huh?

Right, right, exactly, exactly.

Yeah, no, did you guys have a pretty good intuition? You know, your radio man was a regular individual that was always with you trusted. I have to imagine, you know.

Yeah, yeah, I had a security team or radio guy in a camp and, you know, takes four or five people to kind of manage a general to make sure he doesn't get too much trouble.

You know, Norman Schwartzkoff said, why don't you just put stars all over my vehicle and let them know where I'm at because you got so many damn antennas on it.

Exactly, exactly.

Exactly. You know, the one without the gun, the one with all the security, it's like, you know, you're trying to like not wear anything shiny.

It's all like subdued rank, if at all, you know, but you got as posse with you, bro, how do you go around when you're surrounded like that?

Is that is that that's challenging itself? You have to have like, you know, I mean, I eat the alleys the whole nine yards. I mean, you're the head of something special for us, you know, and it's the people of the region.

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